Originally I was going to work from home Monday and Tuesday but ended up working in the office the entire week from Monday the 8th of June to Friday the 12th of June which I really enjoyed.
We’re still rotating staff between working from home and working in the office and working to maintain a high level of customer service.
Restrictions have lowered, case numbers are down but our day to day existence is still not back to the way it was and it is not expected to be for a long time.
June 11
I went to Jetts Fitness at the airport where I work out just after 9pm only to discover the gym was closed from 8pm to 5am currently. I called my gym the next day and established I wouldn’t be charged any fees but it would be a while yet for me and shift workers until we could return to the gym. …and I was feeling so inspired after watching The Last Dance.
June 12
Restrictions are being lowered faster than you would have expected back in March.
Pressure mounts for states to re-open their borders and the recent mass protests seem to be a tipping point.
If mass outbreaks of the disease don’t follow these mass gatherings there is no question all state governments will look to open the borders and lower restrictions even more.
That means a window of about two to three weeks.
Say July 10.
On Friday the Prime Minister held a meeting with National Cabinet and a press conference afterwards.
On Friday afternoon in a press conference Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked a question about the current removal programs from streaming services in recent days like Gone With The Wind in America on HBO Max.
Also closer to home shows like Little Britain and Summer Heights High where white actors had performed black characters in comedy shows in black face which has severe historical connotations.
His answer which also alluded to a recent debate about statues showed where his priorities were.
On the 12th of June the World Health Organisation reported there had been 7,410,510 (more than 7 million were confirmed on the 9th of July) confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally with a daily increase of 136,572. The number of dead were 418,294 with a daily increase of 4,925.
In Australia there had been 7,825 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 18. There had been 102 deaths in Australia.
In Canada there had been 97,125 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 472. The were 7,960 dead with a daily increase of 63.
In India there had been 297,535 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 10,956. There were 8,498 with a daily increase of 396.
In the United Kingdom there had been 291,413 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 1,266. There were 41,279 dead with a daily increase of 151. The only silver lining to be found was that currently there appeared to be a downward trend in the number of daily increase of cases.
In the United States of America there had been 1,988,646 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 20,315. There were 112,810 dead with a daily increase of 832.
In a week when the US leader was clearly protestors from their public city with the full might of police force so he could stand around doing an unplanned photo op where he couldn’t even find some words to say of merit.
My national leader was taking it in all his stride when yelled at by a disgruntled home owner.
Talking up a reno scheme he was assembled in front of a property with press journalists lined up on someone’s lawn to film him.
That wasn’t bloody good enough for the guy inside his house, waltzing out in thongs and tracksuit jumper he asked the journos to move. The Prime Minister didn’t waste a second to apologise and encourage getting off the man’s lawn.
Both the lawn enthusiast and the Prime Minister Scott Morrison exchanged apologies gave each other the thumbs up.
After all the man had just re-seeded!
The disparity between the two images was incredible.
A lone man telling his Prime Minister to move his press conference with a quick apology and thumbs up.
Contrast that with hundreds protesting the injustice of racial inequality of their country only to be forcibly moved so their President could try and save face for his failings.
I’ve often commented on the bulldoggish nature of Morrison as a virtue and a flaw. There was none of that on display here. He couldn’t have risen higher in my estimations.
On the horizon though was another issue for the Prime Minister which would prove more testing. Black Lives Matter protests were starting to take place here in Australia with a march already on Tuesday in Sydney having taken place when public gatherings were limited to 20 people.
On Wednesday there was a candlelight vigil in Brisbane.
He was not wrong, there had been over 432 deaths of Aboriginals in police custody since a Royal Commission was held in 1991.
As the week went on it became clear our political masters were choosing to let mass protests go ahead rather than risk further unrest. This would lay bare either the danger had passed or that the protestors had initiated a new break out. Either way it would undermine their ability to enforce rules going forward as most of them were in a rush to lower restrictions anyway.
We stood at a precipice.
Once again the Prime Minister called on our better natures “We don’t need the divisions that we’re seeing in other countries – we need to stick together and look after each other.”
I was back at work in the office on Thursday too having been away for two and half weeks. I took the chance to pay the money that had been raised on the GoFundMePage to Stellarossa Toowong.
The manager told me the money raised would pay for roughly 112 coffee vouchers but they had gotten 200 and would chip in the rest themselves.
You have to marvel at the kindness of people sometimes.
I started making arrangements with the Media Team at the Wesley hospital to make delivery.
On the 4th of June the World Health Organisation reported there had been 7,229 confirmed cases in Australian with a daily increase of eight. The number of dead 102 with a daily decrease of one. That would be Blackwater Miner Nathan Turner.
In the rest of Europe there were plenty of protests too and in London they were turning ugly with reporters assaulted by protestors or just plain crazy people.
As I watched Nine News Europe Correspondent Ben Avery and camera operator Cade Thompson needing to make a run for it as the crowd attacked them even with a security guard.
Europe Correspondent Sophie Walsh was accosted by a random man who was chased away by her cameraman Jason Conduit.
I urged my sister to stay inside in the coming days.
There was another great Four Corners episode this week from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that covered what had happened on the last cruises of the Diamond Princess in February in the North Pacific and the Ruby Princess in March in the Trans-Tasman Sea.
What was pretty concerning wasn’t just the disembarkation of passengers in Sydney on the 19th of March.
What was more concerning that the cruise had ever been allowed to leave Sydney given how COVID-19 had spread through her sister ship in Asia in February. Or the lack of precautions that were made during the cruise when an outbreak was clearly occurring.
For many of us the initial news reports coming out of that part of the world were perceived as something happening over there like previous diseases SARS and MERS.
As the situation escalated at some point the actions of Carnival Corporation become troubling. And people died.
It’s quite a heartbreaking tale.
May 27
In Blackwater a town of less than 5,000 in Central Queensland the late miner aged 30 returned a positive postmortem test for COVID-19. In the days ahead with the set-up of fever clinics and contract tracing in the town a second test came back negative.
Nathan Turner had underlying medical conditions that had meant he had been unable to work in recent months due to illness. At age 30 he came the youngest fatality in Australia of COVID-19. The second test was good news for the town in terms of COVID fears but his death remained a tragic loss of one so young.
There were 484 active cases in Australia on the 25th of May.
On the 17th of March there had been 410 cases which was on the eve of the Ruby Princess docking and ceasing international air travel.
Allowing that changes were in place that weren’t then and awareness from the general populace was different there was a growing push to re-open the economy.
The Federal and State governments have worked hard through their differences at all times during the crisis at unprecedented levels. NSW and Victoria pushed hard to shut down schools and now there were disagreements about the borders.
In the early days of the crisis as the state borders shut it was considered that it may be until September before they were opened again. Now the momentum was shifting.
The Prime Minister did an address at the National Press Club in Canberra talking about the tough road ahead economically with a plan to stick with the National Cabinet meetings over the previous COAG meetings.
Reform to vocational education was on his mind and bringing unions to the table for industrial reform.
The Prime Minister outlined the road to recovery would be a long one taking between three to five years. The unprecedented actions of Jobkeeper and Jobseeker set in place for a financial quarter would not continue indefinitely with the PM warning “At some point you’ve got to get your economy out of ICU.”
There was no push to have Australia turn more inward, while the Prime Minister defined us as a sovereign trading economy he sought to create an educated workforce that would mean competitive and modern manufacturing, agricultural industries while still trade of natural resources would play a big role.
These remarks were not without context, Australia did call for an independent enquiry into the source of COVID-19 in Wuhan and in the weeks since China has placed tariffs and seen a reduction in importing Australian barley and wheat.
As China has grown into the a economic powerhouse it has started flexing abroad in trade and in military excursions. No different than other superpowers before it but surely any calls that could help in combating this global pandemic should not lead to bullying tactics.
The national leader relayed all the work that had been done to build up medical stockpiles, hospital capacity and testing numbers and contract tracing abilities.
Now here was a mainstream conservative leader steering through a once in a century health crisis, a budding trade war and a looming recession who had outspent all previous Prime Ministers.
The expense the welfare packages running long term came with a hefty price tag. Long term it was just not feasible even for the biggest bleeding hearts amongst us.
Which drove home the gravity of the situation, if Jobkeeper and Jobseeker continued for only the next quarter and the economy didn’t re-open to a certain extent by then…
Then what?
On the 2nd of June, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told us what we already knew, Australia was in a recession.
On the 26th of May however the Prime Minister was focussed on the positives. Citing that with a hopeful completion of the 3 Step Plan by mid-July for re-opening the economy across the country there would hopefully be 850,000 jobs ultimately restored.
He did acknowledge the idea of flicking a switch and turning the economy back on was simply not plausible.
I will close as I sometimes have with the opening hook of the Prime Minister’s speech that day, designed to draw you in emotionally while he unveils policy.
One could get cynical about these things, there is after all a political purpose behind them. A number of highly paid staff curating and writing the brief and deciding what goes in and what doesn’t make it.
I would remind you that in these words the Prime Minister is talking about real people and in these few individuals he is seeking to talk about all of us and not just Australians but all people.
About people who have lost a lot and the grace and courage they display in these moments that came from within them and lies within each and every one of us.
We will need this courage and grace and so we need these words to be said by our leaders now more than ever and we need to believe in them.
This was part of the cluster that originated with a store in Fawkner, Melbourne and affected 1,000 staff. At the time only twelve cases of COVID-19 related to this incident.
The Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews warned “We’re going to see more of these outbreaks.”
The Cedar Meats Abattoir linked to 100 COVID-19 cases earlier in Victoria was now partially re-opening.
For me it did highlight as we began to get to low number of active cases in Australia that the virus was still going to be with us, that we were going to have break-outs and that the rush to get back to levels of activity pre COVID carried a far greater risk. In my mind the spread of these break-outs we were seeing could be minimised by lower levels of social interaction.
May 18 held significance for another reason that really didn’t receive a lot of focus in the media.
A year earlier I had worked for the Australian Electoral Commission on Election Night counting votes in a warehouse somewhere.
I had done temporary work for the AEC in 2016 before doing temporary work for the ECQ.
Karen had worked all that day at a polling station like she does at local and state elections.
In 2016 I had worked as a driver on election day, three years later I stated clearly an interest to do further work counting. I feel fortunate to have this extra work as I try to get ahead in life and this was even more so 18MAY2019 when I remained on contract.
I was in the warehouse just before sunset and left around about midnight.
On my way in I drove past what I knew to be the venue where my parents had their wedding reception. A lot had changed since then so my parents had never really taken us there.
After my shift I walked into the main bar area and looked around for a big staircase with a chandelier. There were not a lot of people around. I walked upstairs and found myself at a doorway of a function room.
Inside were a few people in red T-shirts looking sad. This was my first indication of the election results and then up on the screen was Opposition Leader Bill Shorten announcing he had congratulated the Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
I drove home and my amazing Karen served dinner even thoigh she had worked a very long day.
On the screen Morrison stood with his two cute daughters and beautiful wife on stage. They looked like the middle class families who had voted him in.
In an age of economic uncertainty and identity politics this image of a regular family man was part of the appeal.
The Labour party had put forward an ambitious platform of reform and change just like the conservative campaign of 1993.
A former marketing guru Morrison had reinvented himself from the hard man Immigration Minister he had been, pushing himself as a point of difference from Bill Shorten who knifed two Labour Prime Ministers in a row and his immediate predecessor the urbane and statesman like Malcolm Turnbull who had never won an outright electoral victory to leverage his party room into backing his more ambitious and progressive intents.
Despite this Morrison had polled badly against Shorten throughout the campaign and so on the 18th of May he quite rightly proclaimed “I have always believed in miracles.”
A year later it may seem hyperbole but Prime Minister Scott Morrison may be steering us through the most difficult times this country has faced since World War II.
Prime Minister John Curtin broke from Britain and faced imminent invasion in 1942. Like Roosevelt he died in office before the war ended.
There have been other wars and times when the country seemed to be tearing itself apart. There have been great reformers and leaders who saw us through a crisis or two and pushed through unpopular policies that bore out in time. Menzies, Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd. They’ve all got something to be proud if not many things.
Yet in the twelve months since 18MAY2018 Scott Morrison was heading us towards an economic surplus. When the bushfires started in September he was up at a Canungra sharing a cry with a local resident.
Then he went to Hawaii, then he came back and forced handshakes at Cobargo.
Then he called out the military and attempted to re-write history in press interviews about what happened when the Australian people knew better.
When his father passed after a lifetime of service to the community as a policeman and politician you could see Morrison was hurting but it was hard to drum up sympathy given the anger those lies stirred within.
Yet the bulldog in him sucked it up and got on with the job. This personality trait may prove his undoing but it has also seen him through some tough times.
Since March, Prime Minister Morrison has sacrificed his economic good fortune to ensure all Australians have a roof over their head and money for food and medicine. He’s given lifelines to numerous businesses and while we were arguably a week or two behind putting in place restrictions in comparison to other countries Australia so far has come through.
That can’t be attributed to all one man nor would he want it to be but we have to give credit where credit is due.
A year ago Scott Morrison would never have been able to imagine what he would have to deal with in the next 12 months as Prime Minister.
So far he has proven himself capable and I for one am hoping he will continue to do so.
A trade war is looming with China, international tourism and investments are seriously impacted by COVID-19 and with a slowed down economy not everybody is going to go back to their pre-COVID earning capacity.
There is going to be real suffering in our country and around the world but so far Morrison has managed to keep cases numbers and the spreading of the disease low, provide a safety net for most of the populace and plan ahead as best he can.
I hope for all of our sakes, his second year in office proves less stressful.
For the first time since the pandemic took off 2 months ago, President Trump leaves Washington D.C. to visit a mask factory in Honeywell, Arizona. In a press conference he stresses that the country has to be re-opened soon mentioning the fact that death from drug use and suicide increase during unemployment.
It was fair to say things were getting better in Australia in early May. The danger was still present but there were days when states were not reporting any new cases. In comparison to what could have happened and what was taking place in other countries Australians could breathe somewhat a sigh of relief.
The danger now was to not take this status quo for granted, to not squander our safety with rash decisions. A second wave seemed inevitable so how best to manage it.
That week there was an all too clear example of how things could still escalate even with all the restrictions that had been put in place remaining.
On Thursday the 7th of May there were 13 new cases reported in the state, twelve of them related to the meatworks. The number of cases in Victoria was 1,154.
The World Health Organisation reported the same day that Australia had 6,875 with a daily increase of 26. There were 97 deaths with a daily increase of one.
With talk of restrictions being lowered in other states the Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews advised he would not be lowering any restrictions until Victoria’s State of Emergency ended next Monday.
“There isn’t a jurisdiction in the world that has gone that way that hasn’t had harder lockdowns the second time around compared to the first,” he said.
Australia’s good fortune clashed with what was happening around the world. I hoped the lessons from them could help us to not be so cavalier about the risk.
We had seen footage already of such trucks parked outside hospitals but the parking of them in a group even if not all were full underlined the amount of death occurring.
He then offered a 3 Step program on the road to what was hoped would be the successful lowering of restrictions.
Each step would be subject to review every three weeks to implement the next step but the situation would be constantly monitored and subject to change.
Also the Prime Minister was leaving it up to each Premier to action the steps in line with the particular situation currently in each state.
New South Wales and Victoria had the highest number of cases. The Northern Territory and Western Australia the lowest.
Step 1 involved five people coming over to your house and gatherings of 10 people in outdoor parks, pools, restaurants, community centres, playgrounds, boot camps and public libraries.
There could be ten people at a wedding and 30 at a funeral. Queensland stipulated if it was outdoors it could be 30, indoors only 20.
You could drive up to 150 kilometres from your place.
Following his news conference South Australia committed to step 1 to be implement that Monday.
Queensland committed Saturday May 16 or specifically midnight next Friday.
Tasmania would lift some restrictions on the 11th and planned to do others on the 18th.
New South Wales with the most cases said there would be no changes yet. Half of all cases in Australia were in New South Wales.
The Northern Territory had already set a roadmap for themselves coming out of lockdown. When they started lifting restrictions on the 5th of May, 28 of all 30 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Territory had recovered and there had been no new cases for over a month.
Step 2 would involve gatherings of 20 people, the potential opening of gyms, cinemas, galleries, museums and beauty therapists. Distances of 250 kilometres from home.
Step 3 hoped to be reached in July would look at interstate travel, maybe even travel in the AUS-NZ bubble and gatherings of 100 people. Pubs and clubs would only be looked at for step 3. It seemed like only yesterday that the Prime Minister on the 13th of March had announced gatherings would be restricted to only 100 people in the country from the 16th onwards.
Interestingly with the announcement that people would be able to return to dining soon we had already organised to catch up with friends over dinner via skype.
Including with a friend who had injured her ankle, it raised her temperature so she spent a night in a COVID ward.
She was now doing well albeit with her leg in a cast. She has gone out of her way to support local businesses during the economic downturn.
I had been in touch with people more on the phone recently but it was nice to have everybody conversing together.
I also pulled out the port but sadly ran out of Galway Pipe and had to make the switch to Cockburns which apparently I was mispronouncing.
This was at a time when modelling suggested America could see a death toll at close to 200,000 in the next two or three weeks. The disease was peaking in the United States of America and emergency and health care workers were stretched beyond capacity.
And this fuckbag was talking about ratings!
There was a concern about not enough PPE for health care workers which could lead to many of them becoming sick comprising the system’s effectiveness. There was a concern about not enough ventilators, that more people would die than needed to.
While Governor Cuomo had also cited concerns there have been some thefts of masks. The answer was to Trump’s wonderment at the change in numbers was due to the increased workload and that such items have limited use if good hygiene is to be maintained.
Of the crisis in coastal elite states it is true that the horrific numbers forecast at the time have been reached yet weeks later.
Manufacturing recalibrated with lightning speed to help in a time of need, forgotten stocks of PPE were located and ferried where needed.
Yet hard decisions were made, we are just in the beginning of finding out just what was lost and what could have been done better. I have no doubt the blame will not rest with one man.
History decides who was a good leader. History also gets re-evaluated. There are critics of Churchill and Roosevelt too. Yet history tells us they won the war so they’re remembered the way they are. Right now history is being written about Donald Trump.
On the 29th of March, 2020 the World Health Organisation reported in the United States of America103,321 cases with a daily increase of 18,093 cases in one day breaking into six figures. The death toll in America was 1,668 with a daily increase of 425.
In Australia the WHO reported the same day 3,966 confirmed cases with an increase of 331. There were 16 deaths with a daily increase of two.
It had been a long week and a long day for the leaders of Australia.
There was a press briefing that Sunday night following a National Cabinet Meeting. The Prime Minister looked visibly tired even if he remained resolute. The Press Briefing took place inside Parliament House due to the hour and definitely had the look of a late night meeting.
I felt at that moment that we had not moved fast enough in shutting down. I was aware of an ever increasing danger. I worried for those that I loved and I worried for people I’d never met.
The rate of increase was down slightly in Australia but I guess I was thinking about all 8 billion of us on a rock floating in space.
I was thinking we can only try to get through this and do the best we can and here was someone doing that and he was my Prime Minister goddamnit.
His somewhat flawed traits blunted by his fatigue, his defiant strength to be even more highly regarded given what we faced.
One day I was working in Wattlebrae many years ago. I was cleaning near the Nurses station when a nurse came from a room with a patient and said to another. “Probably Tuesday.”
A patient was in the last hours of their lives and the nurses knew it. They’d seen it enough times to recognise it.
Accepting death is a very real part of being a nurse and being a good one. Some nurses have served in war zones and natural disasters and seen a lot of death but such a large scale in such a short period of time as what was experienced in Wuhan or Lombardy is simply something that leaves a toll.
Let alone the very risk to their own lives and those of their loved ones.
I stand in awe of them.
I truly do.
They are heroes.
They always have been and they always will be.
In Italy student doctors skipped their last exams and were rushed into service. In Britain retired nurses answered the call to come back risking their lives to save others as the NHS faced unprecedented demand. I’m sure this is being replicated around the world
Where do we get such people?
The World Health Organisation warned the United States of America could become the epicentre of the disease.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo becomes impassioned when speaking about the need for equipment to save lives in his home state. Short of criticising the President directly he challenges FEMA “to pick the people who will die.” The President does not respond well to this.
The Tokyo Olympics are postponed and the Australian Football League having played Round One the previous week to empty stadiums stops its season. This follows all other major codes and several sports leagues overseas already having done so.
In Australia, grocery stores swap out the pensioner hour on some days for health care workers who do shift work.
After work on Tuesday night I go to the local barber and get a haircut.
That night following a National Cabinet meeting the Prime Minister announces a new series of measures.
Coincidentally it is announced hair salons and barbers can continue to stay open but with only 30 minutes for a customer. The next day the Prime Minister adds some flexibility into the time spent in a hair salon. Possibly after speaking to his wife?
Cafes and restaurants can only do take-away and food courts in shopping malls are to be shut down with only take-away to be purchased from outlets in the food courts.
Arcades, swimming pools and amusement parks are to shut down. Large crowds are to not congregate in sporting fields and large parks.
Most painfully weddings are limited to five people and funerals are to ten people.
If this seems harsh, think of the poor couples who had weddings mere days earlier before the general populace became aware of how dangerous the virus could be. It must be terrible to know if guests have subsequently become sick.
On the 24th of March the WHO reported 2,136 cases in Australia with a daily increase of 427. There were eight deaths with a daily increase of one.
In Ireland there were 219 cases with a daily increase of 98. There were two deaths with a daily increase of one.
In South Africa there were 402 cases confirmed with a daily increase of 128. The first death was recorded in the country on the 28th of March.
In Russia there were 438 cases reported with no daily increase. The first two deaths would be reported in the country on the 26th of March.
In Singapore there were 507 cases with a daily increase of 52. On the 20th of March they recorded their first two deaths.
In India there were 519 cases with a daily increase of 85. There were nine deaths following the first reported on the 13th of March.
In Canada there were 1,739 with a daily increase of 355. The were 25 deaths with a daily increase of six.
In Brazil there were 2,201 cases with a daily increase of 1,297. The death toll had risen by 35 in one day to reach 46.
In Germany there were 4,438 cases with a daily increase of 1,127. There were 32 deaths with a daily increase of five.
In the United Kingdom there were 6,654 cases with a daily increase of 967. There were 335 deaths with a daily increase of 54.
In South Korea there were 9,037 cases with a daily increase of 76. There were 120 deaths with a daily increase of nine.
In Iran there were 24,811 cases with a daily increase of 1,762. The death toll reported was 1,934 with a daily increase of 122.
In Spain there were 33,089 cases with a daily increase of 4,517. There were 4,182 deaths with a daily increase of 462.
In the United States of America there were 51,914 cases with a daily increase of 20,341. The death toll was 673 with 271 from that day alone.
In Italy there were 63,927 cases with a daily increase of 4,789. The death toll was 6,077 with an increase of 601 that day.
In China the WHO reported 81,767 with a daily increase of 764. The number of dead reported as 3,283 with a daily increase of seven. China’s figures have consistently flattend out with very small increases over this period of time. This is in contradiction to many other nations that have experienced disastrous second waves. The country has also backtracked on opening up initiatives at times too.
As we entered the third week of March more restrictions were to come but the new normal would be firmly established by the end of the week. My hope was that people can deal with having to make changes a great deal more than the uncertainty that comes with not knowing what is going to transpire. Yet for many people around the world uncertainty was coming regardless.
We started to hear about those who were losing loved ones and unable to see them in their last moments or attend the funeral. The spectre of far ranging unemployment also began to descend.
23 March
Monday at my work which involves answering phones we switched to make as many of our processes as digital as possible and shifted the phones to being manned for only a little more than half of the day.
This was a somewhat busy period for us so we held our breath and wondered what would happen. We managed, we did our best, we supported each other, we came through.
I took the time to tell my leadership team that “A calm Captain steadies the ship through storms.”
I had many calm Captains.
As of midday as per the announcement the day before, cinemas, pubs, clubs, casinos and gyms are all shut down. I hadn’t gone to the gym in months but I had just been thinking maybe working from home would help me start up again… yes I know that’s not true.
Discussion is also turning to how to provide solid distance education to all children including those with limited digital tools and internet wifi. Old school methods of booklets and mail outs are utilised too.
One of the guys I have water cooler conversations (there are no water coolers in our officer but GenX and Boomers will know what I’m talking about) at work advised me that he had pulled his kids from school.
I said “Good on him.”
I wanted all of us to be working from home and keeping our kids home as soon as we could.
I worked twelve long years as a temp and on contracts finding myself looking for work at least a dozen times over that same period.
Sometimes I was unemployed for two weeks – other times five months.
Once I worked across two organisations, in 4 different roles, having received six extensions on two different contracts and gone up two pay scales over the course of 24 months.
I never took a holiday and through most of those twelve years I worked a second job as well.
I never managed to save up anything – only to pay unexpected bills. I will admit I did recklessly pay for a trip to attend my sister’s wedding. That was an indulgence on my part.
Registering for and being on the dole is a painful process.
I once sat in a public park to get internet access to apply for a job on an old laptop before driving to a local library in the middle of the application because my battery power started to run out.
Yet I am here and so my hope is all of these talented and hard working people who are victims of circumstance will come out the other side.
The Prime Minister was also thinking of them.
In Canberra there was a sitting of Parliament to pass life saving legislation.
We entered the weekend of March 21-22 still with a lot of questions of how life was changing. International travel was curtailed and it was clear that trading was down and there would be huge economic consequences but how far the restrictions would increase and whether the number of cases increasing would slow down were all up in the air.
A friend of mine had a house party on Friday night. I had a very quiet weekend but our way of life was still mostly in tact even if some of shop shelves were bare and there was a growing concern for our health care workers.
We knew things were escalating but we did not know what the new normal was going to be. I was hoping the next week would define it.
March 21
I saw a couple of videos on youtube including an interview with the former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who had steered us through the Global Financial Crisis. His comments about stronger actions being taken by Singapore or Germany led to me taking on board more information over the weekend.
The Northern Territory announced it would close its borders 4pm on March 24.
Seeing how people react to a crisis reveals a lot about their personalities and the things they prioritise. Amongst my friends and peers I saw people who chart their own path in terms of choosing to take their kids out of school or put in place precautions.
One friend drove out of Sydney early on and is now growing a vegetable garden on Moreton Island with a raft of supplies.
Some of us had parties and went out to comedy festivals seizing the day.
Some have questioned all the information provided by the “mainstream media” and wondered if every action is justified.
I admire in some ways all of these people and all of these traits.
For me, I learnt that I do follow instructions from my leadership and institutions. I follow their lead even when I disagree possibly and I look to help others rather than take care of myself. I do ask questions to see if we are doing everything we should but I rarely rebel.
In that way I am like a soldier.
On Sunday I texted my leadership team I was ready to work from home and the next day I advised that I believed we should have as many people at home as soon as possible. Which was of course what we all had been working on for the past fortnight and more but I guess I was communicating a change in my wish to not be treated differently.
The government was working to keep everybody with the means to feed and house themselves and support small businesses through the downturn as they worked to shut down major parts of the economy in order to save lives. They were very clear that this was the first of many such measures that were already costing 10% of the economy.
Late on Sunday night the Prime Minister went before cameras to provide further answers, to provide information and to assure the Australian people that the National Cabinet were working together although clearly they had pushed back hard for what they deemed were the right decisions for their state.
In line with what the Premiers had already announced, the Prime Minister advised indoor entertainment, sporting and religious venues were to be shut from midday Monday. This included pubs, clubs and restaurants and cinemas.
I have not seen a movie at the cinemas since 07MAR2020 when I saw Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears. It was the third 2020 release I saw after the The Gentlemen and Birds of Prey….well you can’t win them all.
I appreciate some of the kind words from people knowing that I am such a huge film buff and film critic. Yet I want you to know I have streaming, plenty of films I have not gotten around to seeing and… well there are other things to worry about right now.
I have a job, an ability to work from home, the weather is pleasant and everyone I care about is safe although financially many have been impacted.
My thoughts have not been about whether Wonder Woman 1984 is delayed but more what the hell can I do to help those who are experiencing hardship because like I said… I feel truly blessed.
One thing that stood out to me then and still resonates with me now is when the Prime Minister voiced a real concern for the business sector in the evening briefing.
This was at a time when real fear was working through the populace who had secure jobs about the spread of the virus. There were grave concerns that we had moved too slowly and it was certainly my thoughts in that moment.
The World Health Organisation reported on March 22 that Australia had 1,098 cases with a daily increase of 17. We had reached four figures the day before. The death toll was seven.
Yet the Conservative leader more than spared a thought for the very real pain that would occur to millions of Australians losing their jobs it spilled out of him genuinely.
I remember the fear and uncertainty that came in the wake of September 11, 2001.
I remember the two speed economy that Australia became following the Global Financial Crisis.
I remember helping during the Queensland floods of 2011. Driving halfway across town against my mother’s pleas to be with my girlfriend Karen as the river rose and cut off roads.
I sat and watched my TV in the first weekend of this year as my country burned and pushed myself to help arrange a fundraiser barbeque at work. So chastened I was by my ability to not be more directly involved as I had been during the floods of 2011.
I now found myself old enough to remember more than a crisis or two.
Yet I’ve never seen anything like this.
None of us have.
The people who did are all dead.
My grandfather was born in 1918, the same year there Spanish Flu Pandemic began and he has been gone for a long time. That pandemic which has many parallels to this one is out of living memory.
So interestingly enough people have been taking comfort and inspiration in the parrallels of the Great Depression and World War II.
Both were endured in harsher conditions and with a higher death toll and went on for a lot longer than a few weeks.
As new restrictions finally started to take effect and change the way we lived our lives the Prime Minister Scott Morrison found the words to galvanise us calling on those memories of times gone by in the press conference held earlier that day.
